


hello stranger, it's been a minute

by strikereurekapitcrew



Series: repetition [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angus is Baby Magcretia, Cycle 0 elves are cats basically, Julia Burnsides Lives, Multi, Nightmares, Post canon, dwelf julia burnsides, eighth bird julia burnsides
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-05-29 19:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15080078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikereurekapitcrew/pseuds/strikereurekapitcrew
Summary: Magnus’ smile is sad and immediately Julia feels as though she has said something wrong. If she has, he doesn't say, simply squeezing her hand and standing from the table.(Julia and Lucretia's first conversation, set at the end of muscle memories)





	1. the first call

**Author's Note:**

> i mentioned at the end of muscle memories that julia has tea waiting when lucretia finally comes to talk... this is the (angsty) lead up to that moment. enjoy c:

 Neither of them have been sleeping well. If you were to ask Julia, this is par for the course for their marriage.

 

The nightmares after Kalen are bad, of course. Doubly so for Julia, who faced down the maniac and nearly died in the rubble of the Corridor because of it. She still has nights where she wakes to Magnus shaking her. Some nights, she wakes feeling entombed and suffocating, and has to fight through the paralysis with everything she has to come back to reality. The moments she lost near her fight with Lucretia slowly begin to come back in flashes, but everything else? A century of horrors, of life lived running, running endlessly from the Hunger?

Oh, that all comes back in screaming colors and vivid detail. It’s as if someone has cast Light in a hall of mirrors, and the reflection bouncing off the walls is slowly setting everything ablaze.

 

She wakes up crying for Magnus sometimes. Twice so far, since the Day of Story and Song, she’s woken up crying for Lucy - _Lucretia_ -, ending up doubled over and sobbing into her husband’s stomach. More frequently, she wakes up wordlessly, with tears on her face and her left arm aching. It's always phantom pains where it is missing, as if she’s slept on it weird or it’s just been amputated again. The nights that she doesn’t wake Magnus tend to be these pain nights the most, and most of the time, Jules does one of two things. She's typically split between welcoming the morning in the kitchen with a pot of tea, or simply lying in bed, staring down the ceiling like some kind of ooze until bands of sunlight streaming through the window begin creeping closer and closer to her face.

 

It’s his idea for her to extend an offer to parley with Lucretia, for her to come and visit. He comes into the kitchen one morning after a particularly rough night of dreading the journey back to sleep, because she’s terrified of what she’ll see when she closes her eyes. Her tea is long gone cold when his larger hands reach to cover her smaller one and take the cup from her loose grasp. Setting the ceramic mug where it won’t be ruined, his hands then take her right hand, working the tension from her wrist and fingers. She smiles at him, and sees from his face that he’s as tired as she is.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to really see her, sit and talk with her, as she is, knowing who she is and who she was to us.” Jules opens her mouth to inform him something smart, but doesn’t get that chance before her husband speaks again. “But you need her. You need to talk to her and know that she’s okay, that you’re okay, and I can’t blame you for that, Jules. I won’t blame you for that. I _can’t_ blame you for that.”

It's moments like these that she remembers why she fell in love with him the first time around, and then the second. Still, she shakes her head.

“I'm not subjecting you to our estranged wife just because _I_ need her,” she murmurs. “That's not fair to you, having to tiptoe around your own home.”

Magnus’ smile is sad and immediately Julia feels as though she has said something wrong. If she has, he doesn't say, simply squeezing her hand and standing from the table.

“You're ready, even if I'm not. Give it some time, consider the idea.”

 

Somehow, his optimism in the face of his own unpreparedness doesn’t really do anything to quell her anxiety. She almost feels as though she would prefer to face down every single one of her nightmares with no escape than to speak to Lucretia and try to bridge the gaps they’ve created between each other. The Stone of Farspeech that she purchased before leaving the Moonbase sits in the trinket tray on her nightstand, waiting to be put on, and when Jules goes to find it, she finds that she can’t bring herself to do it. She doesn't even touch the pale blue stone, and it feels like it burns her.

 

So, she goes out of her way to do everything she can _not_ to call Lucretia.

She starts by going through her inventory. She starts by making a list of the things that she can throw away because they’re busted in or because she doesn’t think that she’s going to need them in the future. Some of it is filed away as something that she will have to repair later, something that she should probably donate to a local armory. Most of the items that she got from Leon are things she intends on keeping, mostly because she’s seen what magical items with the best laid intentions can do in the wrong hands, and because the Recall Maul is still pretty baller, with a stupidly fun name to say.

The inventory on her inventory only takes up a couple hours of the morning, at which point Julia stops to wash her face, laces a new harness to her arm, and slips into it, wandering out into the nearest market to get something to eat, as well as food to stock their kitchen until they’re meant to leave for what remains of Raven’s Roost. She stops at the confectionery and stocks up on the hard candies that Magnus loves, because he hasn’t yet, and because she thinks that he’ll like it. She buys tea, because she doesn’t have any that isn’t horribly cheap black tea, and buys the new Caleb Cleveland book for Angus, because she knows he doesn’t have it yet.

By the time she makes it back to the small rental home, Magnus is back with Angus and Taako, and at the sight of her, her husband gives her a look, asking a question that he won’t voice aloud with their friend and brother there. Taako has not been quiet about his feelings toward Lucretia since the Day of Story and Song, and some days, it seems like he expects them all to take his side. She shakes her head, heading into the kitchen to kick Taako out of it, and doesn’t have to see the small, sour look that passes her husband’s features to know that it’s there. For a century, he’s gotten agitated with her when she’s done something to neglect her self-care, even something that he’s not comfortable with; that isn’t going to change any time soon, it seems.

She spends far too much time stocking the kitchen properly. It's truly futile, especially since she knows that Taako is going to reorganize it at the first opportunity he gets, just to fuck with her. A century later and he thinks it’s funny. Julia spends even longer dividing up the candy she got for Magnus into various jars to place in various strategic places around their humble little rental for the duration of their time there. Everything she does to kill time isn’t nearly enough, and the only distraction comes when the dwelf finally gets dragged outside by Taako to play soccer with Angus in their little yard.

Taako isn’t _playing_ , natch, but cheering for whoever’s winning and giving Angus tips on how to beat Magnus from the sidelines. The hilarity of it all is enough to keep the nightmares away, to keep Lucretia off of her mind, if only for a little while.

Because, you see, Lucretia is still there in the way that Angus’ eyes glimmer when he finally manages to slip around Magnus and score a goal, and in the way he shrieks with glee when Magnus lifts him off of his feet, and later, at dinner, in the way that he wrinkles his nose in disgust when Taako puts spaghetti squash on Julia’s plate. And it strikes Julia, painfully so, that this is her family and it’s just not complete without Lucretia, without _Lucy._

Even still, after Taako leaves -and takes the ridiculous chocolate cake he made for dessert with him because Julia forces him to-, after the dishes are done and Angus is curled up on the couch, book fallen from his sleep-limp hand, Julia still cannot bring herself to make the call. She sits on the back porch and watches the oil lamps begin to flicker on, lighting the lane in amber. From inside, she can hear Magnus getting Angus settled in the guest bedroom, can hear the creak of the bedframe and in her mind’s eye it’s easy to imagine him brushing back the loose curls from Ango’s forehead.

The telltale heaviness of his footfalls comes back down the stairs, and then the door creaks open behind her, creaking a little more agonizingly as it closes again.

“Do you think I should fix that before we go?” he asks her, settling a step up behind her.

Julia laughs softly, tipping her head to rest it against his knee. His skin is warm from the sun he got that day, and as always, the feel of his body near hers is an instant comfort. “You’re gonna end up doing hundreds of gold pieces in work on this place, and our landlord isn’t going to know what to do with himself once we finally leave and the house is like new and you refuse payment for anything you did.”

Magnus laughs. “So… is that a no?” he asks after a moment, drawing more laughter from her. Once her giggles die down, she heaves a soft sigh, tension bleeding out of her as he starts braiding her hair. Her hair is shorter these days -- courtesy of a battlefield cut on the Day of Story and Song-- so Magnus makes quick work of it. His hands work the tension from the base of her neck and shoulders thereafter. That’s all it takes for a soft purr to rise in her throat, the half-elf draping herself lazily over her husband’s leg and relaxing a little more the lower his skillful hands work.

“I’m gonna fall asleep if you keep that up,” she tells him, sitting up and very gently pushing his hands away from her.

“That’s not a bad thing!” he exclaims. “You were up super early this morning.”

She shifts enough on the step that she can squint up at him. “You’re not supposed to know that. You were asleep when I got up. You usually stay asleep”

Magnus lets out a sound that’s a bit like ‘pfffft’, waving a dismissive hand at her. “I woke up to use the bathroom at, like, 2am, and your side of the bed was cold.”

She knows that he doesn’t mean it, but she feels a bit shamed, as though she should be able to simply shake this and go about her life as if she’s fine, but she’s failing to do so. She can’t hide the look before he sees it, and clenches her teeth, clamping her eyes shut as he cradles her face. Her right hand comes up and covers his, and she hisses out a soft breath, the sound like leaves shaking in the wind.

_I’m not okay,_ her silence speaks, the younger of the pair pressing her cheek into his palm.

His lips find her jaw on the opposite side, his forehead pressing to it after the kiss he offers. _I’ll be okay for you,_ he replies without a word.

 

The weight of her Stone of Farspeech is unmistakable in her palm, and when she blinks up at him to question why he’s brought it to her, he presses a kiss to her forehead and stands, opening the door and heading inside. The door creaks, once and twice, and then she’s alone. It’s a very clear message, Magnus’, a wordless insistance that she call Lucretia. She listens to him head up the stairs, listens to their bedroom door open, but not close.

With a sigh, her fingers untangle the cord, tying it properly around her neck again. Her right hand closes around the stone for the briefest of seconds before bringing it close to her mouth. It’s attuned to Lucretia’s frequency because Angus did it for her, but that doesn’t mean that she thinks her message will be delivered, whether in real time or later.

“Lucretia?”

A beat, a moment of silence, a voice in her head screaming that this is a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad idea. Julia keeps speaking.

“It's Julia... We, uh... We haven’t heard from you since leaving the Bureau. Everything happened…” Julia sighs, running her left hand over her hair in anxious habit, as if the action will help to calm her frenetic energy. “Everything happened really fast. Mags and I are still in Neverwinter for a while yet and we-”

She freezes, the words catching in her throat. No, she had told Magnus that she wouldn't subject him to Lucretia’s presence until he’s ready. The dwelf backtracks and tries again. “ _I_ would like to see you. I…” _I’ve been having nightmares again. I’m not sleeping well, and that always made me worry about you. I just want us to be okay._ “If you let me know in advance when you’d maybe like to stop by, I can make sure Magnus and Taako can go somewhere else so that we can talk… or we can meet in one of the cafes for lunch, or coffee… Just…”

The anxiety comes back, the need to be doing anything but this, and she knows that if she tries night gardening that Magnus will bodily drag her back indoors. So, she has to stick this out, has to just… finish trying to communicate with the wife she spent the last decade with no knowledge of.

“Just get back to me, okay, Luce? I miss you.”

There is a sound like papers shuffling, and then there’s nothing. Lucretia gives her no answer, and Julia burns in shame and sorrow, and something bitter akin to rejection.

She says nothing when she goes inside, and thankfully, Magnus doesn’t ask her. He knows that it’s too short a time between his leaving and her following, so there’s no way that she talked to Lucretia. He helps undo the straps of her prosthesis and rubs the tension out of her left shoulder, helping her relax enough to sleep.

 

She wakes up to a small weight on her stomach, the bed at her back empty. Magnus is downstairs and outside, and she can hear him chatting jovially with the neighbor through the thin windowpane. At some point in the morning, Angus had crawled into bed beside Julia and thrown an arm over her stomach, which makes her smile.

If she dreamt the night before, she doesn’t remember, and is grateful for the brief reprieve. She curls around Angus, pressing a kiss to his dark curls, and purrs quietly, basking in the easiness of the morning.

“Morning, Mom,” Angus murmurs nearly ten minutes later, his face pressed into her left shoulder.

“Morning, Ango,” Julia murmurs back. “You think we can convince Magnus to make waffles?” _Magnus_ , she says, because while calling her _mom_ is easy for him and has been since the incident at the Millers' lab, it hasn't been quite right to call Magnus _dad_ yet. It hasn't been easier either, with everything that, well, _everyone_ knows about Angus' parentage.

He sits up, grumbling, which gives Jules the chance to stretch and reach for the knit shawl that Magnus left out for her. She hands Angus his glasses, and gratefully takes his hand for balance as he helps her to her feet.

 

The Stone of Farspeech is silent against her sternum, and cold, as if it hasn’t been pressed to her throat the whole night. Julia tries not to let that hurt so much, but yeah.

That one stings.

 


	2. distractions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some magnus feelings on the matter. i literally have no clue what i'm doing.

Magnus wakes up before Julia does, the light of the sun just beginning to creep into their bedroom window. He can hear the birds starting to sing, and wishes that he could understand them. He imagines that it’s idle chatter about the day, or chores they have to do, and turns his gaze to the sleeping woman at his side.

Julia is made of soft, sloping curves hiding rigid, work-built muscle underneath, and she’s warm and solid at his side. Waking up next to her feels like the first time, every time, and if he knew that it wouldn’t wake her up, he would reach out to reverently trace the goldenrod bear paw on her right bicep. With her beard gone, beads hanging on a leather cord around her neck, the sigil is the most visible marker of their marriage, and the sight of it every morning is a blessing.

She’s sleeping, and restfully, so he’s careful and quiet as he’s capable of being as he gets out of the bed. He’ll have to thank Carey for all that Rogue training the next time he sees her, because Julia doesn’t stir at all, heaving a deep sigh in her sleep.

For all his effort to get her to do things that would help her cope with everything she’s handling, Magnus is feeling a bit like Taako: tight-lipped, and  _ good out here. _

The stairs creak as he goes down them slowly, and he makes a note to fix those too. It’s become something of a running commentary in his head, the things he wants to do to this place. It keeps him busy between getting into contact with refugees from Raven’s Roost and trying to find magic users who are willing to help with the rebuilding efforts. Carpentry takes his mind off of everything, and if he can use his skills to fix something for someone else, then he’s going to.

He’s always kind of been that way.

That, he supposes, is probably part of why he nudged Jules to talk to Lu- to the Director. It wasn’t necessarily his problem to fix, but he was going to try to help her fix it, in any way he could.

It was only the first attempt, but Julia isn’t any less miserable, and Magnus… Well… Magnus rushed in and probably made the wrong judgment call, which has only made Jules hurt worse.

Maybe it’s silly, thinking that they can bridge the divide between them and Lucretia. He doesn’t even know if that’s something he feels comfortable doing after learning about the absolute breach of trust at the same time everyone else did. He  _ needs  _ time. He knows he needs time. You can’t just love someone for three-quarters of a century, live a decade and a lifetime with no memory of them, learn that  _ they  _ caused that memory lapse, and just be fine. At least that’s where he’s sitting with it.

Julia has always been different. Julia has always been kind, and patient, and forgiving. Gods, she’s so  _ damn  _ forgiving, like holding onto her grudges pain her more than the initial injuries, and he  _ knows _ . Magnus knows that Julia forgives their wife, that she just wants them to be okay.

_ Come home _ , she had hissed so, so fiercely into his mouth as he prepared to board the Starblaster and face down the Hunger.  _ Bring her home. _

He did. Sort of. And he didn’t. Mostly.

And Julia is  _ suffering _ . Julia is recovering, but she’s lonely. She’s loved Lucretia since she was six years old, one hundred and fourteen long years. Longer still, probably, because Magnus is sure that Julia kept loving her, this Lucy shaped void in her life, even if she didn’t know who Lucretia was.

None of them have heard from her, save for maybe Angus, but that’s because when he’s not been with the Burnsides-Taaco-Bluejeans family, he’s been staying at the Moonbase. With his  _ mother _ .

Yeah, that’s another weight on Magnus’ shoulders, missing the first ten years of his son’s life and then reconciling the way that they had treated him like mean older brothers.

The sight of a full jar of hard candy brings a tired smile to the man's face, brings him back to the little Neverwinteran house as he scoops it from the rickety shelf Julia had precariously placed it on. Magnus sighs, making a note to fix that as well. She wasn't joking when she said that he's going to put a bunch of work into this place, even though they weren't staying for too long. He sets the jar on top of a box full of arms from his collection, carefully placing it in the grip of a severed robit arm before moving past and looking through the boxes in the living room for his tools.

Magnus… Magnus isn’t one to plan, which is what’s going to keep him working on this place until he can’t find anything else to work on. It’s a blessing, not even one in disguise, just an outright blessing. He knows that Julia will have questions that she won’t ask, and he knows that he has answers that he doesn’t think are the right ones to give. So, he’ll work on the house while they’re staying there, and he’ll ask Julia to teach him to garden in a yard, since he manages to keep houseplants going well enough, and because she always used to talk about homesteading. He’ll take Ango to the market to see if they can find a good, soft wool for a new shawl that he wants to make Julia, with a pattern gifted to him by Kravitz, and see if he can’t find someone who’d maybe like to buy a duck or two while they’re out.

He’ll do anything to keep his mind off of Lucretia, and damn it, he’s going to start with that creaky door. After a second thought, he goes fishing for a spare container of talc since the porch is creaky too, and listening to it while pacing the boards is driving him a little bit batty.

It’s careful work, getting the door off its hinges so that he can fix them. Before too long, he falls into the familiar rhythm of it all, moving from replacing the door in its frame to marking creaky boards on the porch with a piece of chalk that he borrowed from Angus. The white Xs make it so much easier to go back over later, so he doesn’t have to step on each board one at a time to figure out which ones are squeaking and which are perfectly fine. Sweeping talcum into some of them works, but not many, which finds Magnus screwing new screws next to the existing nails to make sure that he makes it into the joists.

It’s patient, methodical, meditative. It makes him think about his actions and how every little thing counts, but not in such a way that leads to him wanting to find the nearest tavern and drown his sorrows.

It takes him out of his head and out of time for longer than he realizes, and, unfortunately, takes him a second to realize that a person -a neighbor?- is trying to get his attention.

Magnus blinks, focuses, smiles lightly at the young man attempting to speak to him.

“Sorry… get really involved in…” he trails off, gesturing toward his tool belt.

“No, it’s okay,” the man laughs lightly, keeping his position on the other side of the fence. “It’s early, anyway. Earlier than most people would like to be dealing with the neighbors.”

“Oh, not at all.” Magnus stands, dusting off his hands, and goes to meet him, offering his hand to shake. “Magnus Burnsides.”

“Hero of Faerun,” the neighbor jokes, and Magnus must pull a face, because he immediately goes, “No, man, I’m just kidding. I’m sure you’ve heard that a lot lately.”

Magnus heaves a soft laugh married to a sigh and nods. “A bit, yeah.”

“Ronan,” the younger man shakes his hand, grip firm and warm. “My husband Gerald has had a lot to say about your wife. Says, I quote,  _ she’s quite a peach, that one, you’d like her. _ ”

It strikes something in him, almost like hitting a gong with a maul, and the fighter feels his jaw drop at the realization. Gerald, the neighbor directly next door, kept a large number of very big, very sweet honeybees and brought Julia a few jars of honey to welcome them to the neighborhood, however briefly they stayed. Julia, in return, had gotten together with Taako and made him a tray of baklava with one of the jars.

(Once upon a time, this would’ve been something that Jules could’ve done alone, but there was only so much she could do these days with a metal hand. Taako, to his credit, had only huffed just enough to get a rise out of Julia, and put her on pistachio chopping duty.

They all enjoyed the baklava.)

“Oh,  _ you’re  _ Gerald’s husband!” he exclaims, and his grin is bright as the sun hitting his face. “Julia adores hearing him talk about you. Really likes the bees, too.”

The conversation flows easily, in a way that Magnus isn’t truly sure he’s experienced in a while outside of Tres Horny Boys (and One Competent Woman) or the Bureau. He hasn’t stopped moving in something like six years, since the bombing at Raven’s Roost, Julia took the Oath of the Ancients, and they started adventuring. Talking to someone who, for the most part, has a normal life is incredibly refreshing.

They joke and laugh. Magnus tells him a little bit about the Two Sunned Planet, now that he remembers. Ronan tells him that he had family at Raven’s Roost, which gives Magnus pause until the young man insists that they lived in the Graziers’ Keep, not the Cratfmens’ Corridor. His parents had taken him to Neverwinter at the start of the Relic Wars, and that was where they lived most of the time, for a number of reasons, like the crazy taxes that were later implemented. Magnus steps aside to let Ronan come join him in the yard, and they sit on the porch steps, continuing on talking about… well, everything. And it’s so strange for Magnus, having someone to talk to about normal things. Ronan was helping to repair the cathedral at Helm’s Hold, explaining his absence since the Burnsides had moved in, and of course everyone knows who they are, but the young man insists that he wants to know who they are, not what the Story makes them out to be.

The sun is higher when the door opens, Julia wearing the off-white shawl that he made for her when they were still in the dormitories on the moon base. It stops Magnus mid-sentence, seeing the way her hair is mussed, half of it still sweat-damp and flat while the rest falls to her shoulder. Her sleepy grin lets him know that, yeah, he’s staring, but he can’t help it.

“Breakfast, Mags?” she suggests, and the door opens again behind her, Angus sleepily leaning into her right side as if he’s loathe to leave it. Her arm moves around his shoulders accordingly, like cradling the World’s Greatest Detective is where it belongs.

“You had waffles yesterday,” he starts, and both his wife and son groan like small, petulant children.

Magnus laughs, and Ronan stands, stretching lightly.

“Day’s moving fast,” he says. “I should go get Gerald up.”

“Bring him by after he does his daily check on the bees,” Julia says, tapering off whatever’s meant to follow with a wide yawn.

Magnus turns to their neighbor with a small smile. “What she means to say, if she can stop yawning, is that we would love to have you over for breakfast if you were up for it, Ronan. We’ll leave the door open for you.”

The young architect mutters a soft “well, alright,” and sets down the stairs, crossing the yard and ducking into his own, disappearing behind the impressive trellises that his husband has blooming like mad. Magnus watches him until he’s gone, then turns to Julia, reaching out to cradle her cheek. Her flattened hair is soft under his palm, and he leans in to press a kiss to her lips, then to her forehead, relishing in the soft sound she makes and the gentle way her lips curl at the corners.

“Breakfast?” he suggests, reaching down to ruffle Angus’ hair.

“Waffles, sir?” the young boy asks, ever hopeful.

“We had waffles yesterday, Ango,” Julia reminds the boy, dropping her sleepy voice to a gruff, if passable impression of Magnus’ own timbre.

Magnus rolls his eyes gently, holding the door open for them both. As he leaves it open behind them, he makes a mental note to see if he can find or build a screen door to put over it. They’re going to be there through the summer, and it’s bound to get a bit stifling; Neverwinter always had such a weirdly warm climate.

Julia moves through the kitchen the way she used to move through the Hammer and Tongs, as if she's never belonged anywhere else but there. It's force of habit to lean in the doorway, watch her move. She's not in the mood to give him any quarter this morning, however, because she glances over her shoulder at him and cocks her head toward the icebox, a small smile on her lips that says Good sir, if you don't help with breakfast, you don't get to eat breakfast. He hums, moving into the kitchen, and guides Angus to sit. It's small, so there's not a lot of room, surely not enough for three people to be working, even if two of them are particularly small. It's like a dance, working with and around his wife to pull out everything that they need to make breakfast.

The glint of the Stone of Farspeech peeking out from under her shawl is unmistakable, but Magnus says nothing, even as he's harshly pulled back to the present at the sight of it.

It's not the only thing to bring him back, as a sudden  _ hail and well met, my dudes _ stops them all in their tracks, a very familiar wizard appearing in the doorway with an incredibly handsome man in tow.

"Magnus, Jules, Ango McDango!" Taako greets brightly, far too chipper for the early morning.

"Do you not knock?" Julia huffs, but smiles as Taako leans down and presses a kiss to each cheek, reaching up to tweak one of her ears playfully.

"Never, bubbeleh," he replies, sweeping his hat from his head in a smooth motion to set it on the counter. "Now scoot. I won't have you cooking breakfast when I'm right here."

Julia's resounding huff brings a small smile to Kravitz's lips, the reaper smart enough to hang back, instead of barging into the kitchen the way his boyfriend had.

"Go on, shoo," he tells them, and Magnus hesitates before getting a "not you, someone has to make coffee for them."

Angus gets to his feet. Taako reaches out to ruffle his hair playfully as he passes, and Kravitz lets Julia hook her hand in the crook of his elbow, leading him out to the backyard, Magnus assumes. It was where they'd taken to eating, as the only other option is the living room, and Julia put a quick stop to that.

"Are you just going to continue to kick Julia out of the kitchen  _ every  _ time you're here?"

"You're damn right I am," the wizard replies with a wolfish grin, tipping his head to rest it on Magnus' shoulder. There are very few ways that Taako shows him affection, but this one is the softest. In kind, the fighter tips his head to rest his cheek atop the elf's, the slightest whiff of elderflower one of the many things that he could only classify as  _ home _ .

"Besides," Taako says, uncharacteristically somber as he rolls up his sleeves. "She needs a break, and she always has a good time with Krav."

"So you figured that commandeering her kitchen to make everyone breakfast was a good option?"

"Oh, no. Breakfast was just a bonus."

Magnus laughs heartily, moving as easily around Taako in the kitchen as he does Julia. The elf is right, after all, because someone has to make coffee. Angus is getting tea, since the caffeine content is lower, and responsible parenting has to start somewhere, he supposes. The mugs are all mismatched. Lup had been absolutely aghast watching them unpack the little that they had, but Merle insisted that it was on-brand, each mug a memory from someone or something, that the sentimentality of it was what matters, not the aesthetic. Needless to say, it was an interesting evening, bright and shining in that everyone was laughing, happy despite the wildly differing opinions on cutlery and dishware.

Recovering. They are recovering.

Kravitz and Julia greet him with polite smiles as he offers them each a coffee cup, and he suspects that Krav takes it for the nicety more than Julia's necessity. Angus, he learns, has gone to shower and get ready for the day, leaving the barladin and reaper to talk about her little yet formidable garden. Magnus joins them around the small table, listening but not really adding to the conversation. Plants are Julia’s niche, and Merle’s, and Merle’s ardor for arbor has made the carpenter content to not worry about greenery on one too many occasions, so it’s not really his wheelhouse. His left hand rests on Julia's knee, thumb rubbing absent circles into the soft skin; his right cradles his slowly cooling coffee cup. For being undead, he learns, Kravitz sure knows a lot about keeping plants alive, and the whole discussion is absolutely riveting despite Magnus’ general misgivings. He did have it on his mental list to learn a thing or two, and he’s definitely learning by listening to the reaper and his wife speak so passionately about perennials and annuals.

Taako brings them a tray of fresh fruit to stave off the hunger while he actually makes breakfast for them and the conversation continues uninterrupted until Angus joins them again.

He's like a comet in Julia's orbit, returning and returning again, and Magnus' only thoughts on that front range from a quiet fondness to  _ me too, buddy _ . He's not... really thought about this whole parenting thing yet, because that means that he'll have to address the Lucretia issue, but Julia takes it all in stride, the way she always has, and reminds the carpenter of why he loves her so much.

"How's the reaper business? Lup's body isn't quite ready yet, according to Barold," Julia turns the conversation to their family, peering at Kravitz over a plate of melon cubes and strawberries.

"Arrangements have been made and they'll begin actually working once she's back in her corporeal form, but they seem to be taking it well," he says, reaching up to tie his dreadlocks back into a loose bun at the base of his neck. "Taako has been insisting on a couples' night."

Julia snorts softly, so much like Magnus that it makes him laugh again. "I'm sure he is."

"I think that sounds like a great idea," Magnus says, reaching to steal a bit of cantaloupe from Julia, who swats his hand without even missing a beat. "Hey, ow!"   
"The platter is  _ right there, _ Mags."

"And your plate is  _ right here,"  _ he replies, popping the piece of melon into his mouth before she can take it back.

Her pointed ears flick in playful irritation, but she lets it go, turning her attention back to the dark-skinned man sat across from them. Kravitz doesn't  _ need _ to eat, but he's taken a liking to it again since being with Taako. Magnus imagines it has something to do with Taako's increasing comfort with cooking for those he cares about again, imagines that it's probably helpful, in a weird way, to cook for someone who  _ can't  _ die.

"We're not really doing too much here until we get everything squared away to start rebuilding Raven's Roost," she says. "All I ask is that we get a little warning, just some advanced notice. Lup is a little better about that, but Taako-"

"Is impulsive and likes to show up to visit you without warning?" Kravitz finished for her, tipping his head inquisitively.

"Mn, that's the one," she nods, her tone asking  _ really, what can you do? _

To anyone else, it would seem as though she was asking for the courtesy warning for herself, but Julia has never really been the kind of person to need time to prepare for social interactions. No, Magnus knows that she's asking for advance notice because she's still waiting patiently for Lucretia to get back to her. She's asking for a little bit of time to spare them all of the inevitable vitriol that will spill from Taako, the discomfort from everyone, the muddied waters that they're not even sure how to start navigating.

Kravitz, to his credit, seems to understand, and nods, swirling the coffee in his cup a little. "I'll do my best. You know how he can be."

The Burnsides exchange a knowing look. A hundred years and some change at Taako's side?

"We know," they laugh. Magnus leans into his wife, resting his chin on top of her head.

 

It's a good start to the morning, and he won't nudge her to try and get into contact with Lucretia today. A hundred years with them both and he knows that they both need time.

Today, he decides, is for the friends and family that are there with them. For introducing Ronan and Gerald to Kravitz and Taako when the former finally join them for breakfast, for sharing the aforementioned meal with friends, for laughing at Kravitz's shock at the sight of several sparrow-sized bees joining them at the table and Julia's ease at cradling them to her face without fear of being stung. It’s for Angus telling them excitedly

Taako and Kravitz take Angus for the afternoon, off to enjoy all that Neverwinter has to offer, and Magnus goes next door to help Ronan fix a stuck window while Gerald assists Julia with some weeding and pruning. She doesn't wear her arm, giving herself a well-deserved break.

Despite the missing piece that they choose not to address, the ever-present elephant in the room as it were, Magnus and Julia have a good day. A productive day.

At night, Julia takes off the Stone of Farspeech and leaves it with her other jewelry. Taako is staying the night, sans Kravitz. The reaper, unfortunately, had to leave while they were in the middle of toasting marshmallows. Something about  _ duty calls _ , which Magnus takes to mean a bounty needing an emergency response. Or the Raven Queen nagging him.

No rest for the wicked, he supposes.

Angus is asleep first, and Taako settles him in one of the hammocks he's summoned before rejoining the married couple around their little fire pit.

"Heard from Lulu?" he asks, and Magnus knows that he doesn't mean Lucretia.

"Lup and Barry haven't been by since the mug discussion," Julia supplies, using Magnus' thigh as a pillow. "Barold sent a messenger raven, though."

Taako laughs, muttering something that sounds like  _ geekass goth  _ and nods. "Did he tell you about the arcanists we found for your little pet project?"

"The earthmovers?" Magnus asks. "Yeah. We're supposed to meet with them at the beginning of fall. We're still sort of..." he trails off, unsure of how to phrase. Rebuilding a ghost town, especially one that literally watched part of itself fall from the sky... it's heavy, it's never not going to be heavy, he thinks.

"Yeah," Taako murmurs. "Yeah… well..."

And he doesn’t really have the words to fill the space either, the words to offer his help, or to promise Magnus that it’ll really all work out.

“Yeah,” Magnus echoes, and before he can stop himself, he wishes that Lucretia was there. She was always the planner of the crew and would know how to handle this.

He bites down on that thought, letting the silence of the night settle comfortably in the conversation as Julia dozes off at his knee.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this... will eventually result in julia and lucretia talking... i just have to give myself a bunch of slowburn anguish first, apparently.


	3. a busy interim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> parenting and quiet moments.

The busy work isn’t necessarily cathartic, but it’s as close as Julia thinks she’s going to get for the time being.

Over the years, both the decade on Toril and the century preceding, Julia has learned that some days, that’s all you can ask for, and that you should really take your wins where you can get them.

The day after the marshmallow roast, she goes to lunch with Kravitz. It’s sort of his apology for having to disappear, even though Julia insists that he doesn’t need to apologize for being pulled away for work, of all things. The lunch is delightful, regardless, and so is the sweet, comfortable silence as they walk the spacious lanes of one of Neverwinter’s larger parks. Julia will be the first to say that she never thought that she would become so close to Death, but there’s something particularly pleasing about his cool presence that almost feels as though the fear of  _ life  _ is pulled right from her grasp. 

There's an odd safety in that.

Angus goes back to the moon base that same afternoon, and the look he gives Julia as he climbs into the glass orb breaks her fucking heart. She wants to go with him, to march right into Lucretia’s office and not give her the option of not answering her, or of running away from everything that they need to talk about. She’s known Lucretia for the formative portion of her life, though, and she knows that this will do nothing but exacerbate the problem even more. It’s not the right thing to do. So, she keeps the hurt from her face, waves goodbye with a smile, and watches the orb carrying her son ascend higher and higher until she can no longer keep track of it. And she wants to sit on the porch that Magnus spent the morning fixing to just weep, but she doesn’t. 

Julia chooses joy.

She chooses to be busy.

Where Magnus is not a planner, Julia is and always has been. Magnus rushes in, Julia rushes after.

Rebuilding Raven’s Roost feels like a pipedream, but will take an immense amount of planning, which affords her the option of further distracting herself from the thought of her estranged wife. Today, unfortunately, is not a day that she can afford to leave the Stone of Farspeech with the rest of her jewelry, waiting not just for the possibility of Lucretia getting back to her. No, there’s the possibility that Angus may need her for emotional support, or that Merle will call to tell her that he’s coming to visit, or Barry will call, whether to gossip or to provide her with a new contact for the Raven’s Roost Rehabilitation operation. The Stone weighs heavy around her throat, and she hates it, for all its necessity.

So she finds herself a comfortable patch of shaded grass and rolls out the plans she’s already drafted, diving right in. She wishes for Lucretia’s expertise before she can stop her own thoughts from wounding her. It’s so exquisitely ambitious, their desire to just go home, to fix the home that they lost so they have somewhere to return to in the first place. Honestly, so is trying to bridge the gap that’s been growing between her and Lucretia since the Hanging Arcaneum.

“You don’t have Lucretia’s help,” Julia breathes, needing the verbal, audible reminder. She doesn’t let it sting or, rather, does not acknowledge that it does. The work keeps her up, keeps her from breaking down as much as she wants to. The weight of a hundred years is lonely and crushing, and while Wonderland’s voracity has made her body catch up with the number of years she’s lived, all it’s done is served to untether her a little more, making her feel too young to carry the life -lives, really- that she’s carrying.

She chooses  _ joy _ . She chooses service. She chooses light, to try righting the wrongs done to a community that loved her when she had nothing but her name and six wounds climbing her back.

 

She’s given up working for the day when Magnus returns. Her incredible hearing follows him from the house, to the porch, and then in the grass. A couple of Gerald’s bees have taken residence alongside the hand on her stomach, taking to the air when her husband’s shadow passes over her.

“How was the Market?” she asks, blinking up at him as her eyes adjust to light after being closed for the better part of two hours.

“Good,” Magnus answers quickly, but not the kind of quick that denotes he’s hiding something or leads her to believe he’s being insincere for her benefit. “Good haul today. Found a good paint to open up the living room, make the space seem a little bigger than it is.”

“You mean without taking Lup and Barry up on their offer for space-bending magic?” Julia teases, shifting a little so that he can join her on the picnic blanket.

The scoff she gets in return is all the answer she needs, really, a wordless  _ You know me too well, little lady _ .

“Making progress?” he deflects, gesturing toward the pile of scrolls and maps, as well as the journals weighing them down so that the gentle breeze won’t get bold and take them.

“Some. There’s… still so much to be done, so many people to find and talk to.”

“Your dad used to say that some things don’t always need doing in one fell swoop,” Magnus murmurs, and that sticks her like an arrow in the throat. There’s something so poignant about the nonchalance of calling Steven Waxmen her dad now that everything has come back. They haven’t really spoken at length about it, her time at Raven’s Roost before Lucretia led him there, about finding a family to fill the void left by no memory of her crewmates a whole four months before the Redaction. She hasn’t told him about Kalen’s attempts to be her friend so that he could court her, and can’t now, or how she spent the period of time before the Redaction with only a vague inclination that someone cared enough to carve a betrothal bead for her, which meant that she’d been married before her unfortunate arrival. She hasn’t told him about the brain injury, about the amnesia, about how even without the knowledge of the Two-Sunned Planet or that she was the firstborn daughter of the Sanddigger clan, Steven was more of a father than hers had ever been.

She hasn’t told him about her harsh depressive backslide and loss of progress the afternoon of the Redaction, the painful, aching acceptance that nobody was coming for her and not knowing  _ why _ , and how Steven put her back together with the same care he used while artificing. She supposes that these are things that she will have to tell Lucretia before she can tell Magnus, because  _ she _ is the one who desperately needs to know them, but not having told him is still so hard for Julia.

“Yeah,” she mutters. “He did say that a lot, didn’t he?”

“Mhmm,” Magnus replies. “Usually when I was being impatient. Not that I’m saying  _ you’re  _ being impatient, you know, just-”

“No, no,” Jules says quickly. “I  _ feel _ impatient, it’s okay.”

“Everything in its time, right?” he reminds her, and she laughs. “What?”

“Nothing… Just wondering when you got so wise, is all,” she tells him, and his laugh is the full-body kind, Magnus throwing his head back.

“Well, see, once I was twenty years old, and this really pretty girl  _ handily _ handed me my ass in an arm wrestle, then I had the brains to-”

"Screw her brains out?" Julia interjects, waggling her eyebrows at him from where she's lying in the grass.   
The flush that finds her husband's face is instantaneous, like he's still twenty years old, or nearly twenty-three, starstruck at the sight of her for the first time, twice over.   
"I was gonna say to keep her close to me, but since you decided to be so  _ vulgar _ , hachi machi, Julia," he sputters out, making her laugh more. Flustered as he is, the fighter still manages to get serious. “You made me wise up. You didn’t really give me any choice in the matter some days.”

Julia hums, staring up at the cornflower blue of the sky and missing, for a moment, the delicate lavender of her youth. It’s a bit frustrating, this conversation, because it highlights that he can take most of the lessons she taught him in stride, but she has to learn them again and again.

“I know that look. Missing home?”

“You’re my home, Mags,” she replies without missing a beat. “But yes. Missing something.”

Yeah. Missing  _ something _ .

 

It’s a quiet afternoon that becomes a quiet evening. Julia naps in his lap, trapping Magnus for about an hour and a half. She works on dinner by herself while he works on fixing more of the loose boards on the first floor. She contemplates writing him a list, something he can come back to anc check off one by one, but she also knows that he prefers the spontaneity of finding something new to work on, so she gifts him the joy of that.

Since it’s just the two of them, they happily eat their shitty pasta on the kitchen floor, Magnus crosslegged and Julia’s legs hooked over one of his, the way they used to when all-nighter maintenance runs became super early mornings on the Starblaster. Magnus helps her clean, washes the dishes so she doesn’t have to struggle through it, and sets the kettle on the stove after filling it for her.

It’s quiet, but only because tonight has dissolved into one of those where they don’t have much to say. Julia likes these nights, the reminder that after a century and a separate decade together, tender silence is sometimes all the conversation that they need.her right hand slips into his left as he finds her waist, pulling her close; six years of this, and it’s still the strangest feeling, dancing without her prosthesis.Still, Julia smiles into his shoulder as he hums a waltz from Legato, a composition that wasn’t fed to the Voidfish under the mountain before the Hunger consumed the plane. It’s a bittersweet memory, dancing to it the first time, remembering it now. It’s the perfect accompaniment to their kitchen dance, like many moon apartment, workshop, and quarry dances before it.

The world fades away for a moment. Julia isn’t sure when Magnus stops humming the slow song and just holds her, still dancing, his hand warm at the small of her back. The other cradles her hand to his chest, keeping her close as if the Burnsides woman is his holiest treasure.

The comparison, she knows, is not far off, even if he’s always been so very  _ no Gods, only man. _

“ _ Mom? _ ”

The world comes crashing back at the mousy sound of Angus’ voice coming through her Stone. Julia steps away from Magnus and catches the mist of  _ something _ in his dark eyes. She doesn’t ask, squeezes his hand with a loving smile, and murmurs a gentle, “What’s up, Ango?”

“ _ Oh, you’re awake. _ ” She can practically see the way that he sags with relief in her mind’s eyes. “ _ I just- I’m- I just wanted to say goodnight before bed, I- _ ”

And Julia smiles, a soft sigh of a laugh leaving her. “I love you, too, kiddo.” She can feel Magnus watching her with a quiet fondness, one that she actually catches when she glances up at him.

“ _ Can… can you tell Magnus that I love him too? _ ” Angus asks after a moment of silence. Julia meets her husband’s eyes, and he looks a little bit gut punched at the request. She’s not sure why, as he’s uttered quick  _ iloveyoubye _ s before, but this is Magnus’ thing to work through, not hers.

“I’m right here, Ango,” he says, and Julia can see him shaking, the slightest tremble in his strong hands. “I love you. Behave for the Director and let us know when you’re ready to come back, okay?”

His dark eyes lift to Julia’s, as if asking her if that was okay. She nods, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Sleep well, Ango,” she tells the boy lovingly. 

Without a beat, his chipper voice comes back. “ _ You too, Mom. _ ”

The Stone goes cold in her hand.

Magnus huffs a soft breath in the newly established silence of their kitchen, and something in the air feels a bit heavier as he leans against the counter next to her.

“Are you okay?” the dwelf prods gently after giving him a moment to collect himself.

“Yeah,” Magnus says, and sounds distant. “No, yeah, I’m fine. I just-”

His face is filled with confliction, and she utters a soft  _ hey, babe _ , reaching up to cradle his face. He leans into the touch, pressing a soft kiss to her palm.

“Everything in its own time, remember?” she reminds him. “He knows that you love him. He  _ knows,  _ Magnus.”

His sigh is heavy, and his hand is warm over hers. He nods firmly to himself nonetheless. “Everything in its own time,” he echoes quietly, pressing another kiss to her palm.

Julia smiles up at him, absolutely adoring, and trails her fingertips over his throat, her palm resting over the steady thrum of his heart. The lulls like this are rare, moments where she feels like things will be okay, so she takes it on its face and lets it be. Magnus takes her hand, turning down the lamps as he leads her back upstairs.

Sleep comes… easily.

 

It does not stay.


End file.
